WASHINGTON — The soon-to-be newest member of the House has plenty of ideas on how to fix Washington. But Republican Curt Clawson might feel a little frustrated after taking the oath of office.

Many high-profile issues, such as the debt ceiling, the farm bill, flood insurance, and revamping the health care system for veterans, have either been decided for now or are about to be wrapped up. Others, including immigration reform, trade deals, and an overhaul of the tax system, have stalled amid partisan divisions and are unlikely to be taken up until next year at the earliest.

Clawson arrives in the middle of an election year, when lawmakers spend more time playing to their political bases than seeking common ground. Clawson himself will head back to the campaign trail later this summer in a bid to win a full two-year term for the seat vacated in January by Republican Trey Radel following a cocaine bust last year.

"If he doesn't want to be disappointed, his expectations should be very low," said Norm Ornstein, a congressional scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank. "And it's not just that he's a freshman coming into the middle of if, it's that we have a Congress that is likely to do very, very little."

In addition to the partisan gridlock, House members will have only 28 legislative days to get something done between their return to Capitol Hill in the second week of July and the Nov. 4 elections. They're scheduled to take off all of August, more than half of September, and all but two days of October.

That doesn't mean they'll have nothing to do.

Congress is working its way through the annual spending bills for federal agencies. A stopgap funding measure likely will be necessary by Sept. 30 in order to avoid another government shutdown.

Lawmakers also must find a way to shore up the depleted Highway Trust Fund, which finances roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects.

Other priorities include compromises on paying for legislation to improve veterans' access to health care, reauthorizing the law that governs fishing in federal waters, and renewing a Bush-era law that created a federal backstop for insurance claims related to acts of terrorism.

Expectations for an immigration overhaul ahead of the midterm elections were already low and dropped even further after Cantor's primary loss. His defeat was partially attributed to his support for providing a pathway to citizenship to immigrant children brought to the U.S. by their parents.

Ornstein says other Republicans see Cantor's loss as a sign that compromising on key issues could cost them conservative support back home, and has dampened prospects for progress on legislation.

Clawson will be "a foot soldier in an army of 'nos,'" Ornstein said.

Clawson, 54, a former corporate CEO who has never held public office, is not setting his sights too high, at least for now.

"I want to get to know my own locker room and I want to get to know my own leadership and my own teammates," said the former Purdue University basketball team captain. "And so in some, ways, it being a slow year is good for me because I want to understand whom I playing with on my side and understand capabilities and personalities so that I can be a meaningful part of the team."

But Clawson said he's not giving up entirely.

He's been campaigning on a plan that he says would grow the economy 5% a year by reducing taxes, cutting regulations and enacting a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. He's also pushing the Penny Plan championed by former GOP Rep. Connie Mack that would cut federal spending by 1% a year until the federal government no longer runs a deficit, or about six years.

Mack's legislation never got very far, largely because leadership didn't back it.

Clawson said he's willing to be patient.

"Businessmen are practical people and I'm a serious, practical man," he said. "I never had a union negotiation or a customer negotiation where I got everything I wanted. The name of the game is, always move forward."